As we enter lockdown 3.0, we hope you are continuing to navigate your way through the often difficult circumstances and challenges thrown up by the pandemic. For those of you who are parents and juggling work commitments and remote schooling, we are full of admiration. I have to say, I was most impressed with my 5 year old, who was able to raise his hand, join/leave meetings and mute/unmute by the end of week one! We can only hope that we are raising a generation of tech savvy children (Priya).
(Michelle) I am about to start my second week in my new job working for Spelthorne BC and am finding it is very different to working for Richmond where there is a comfortable majority. Spelthorne has no overall control and two members resigned from the Labour group over the Christmas period, meaning there are currently seven groups and two independents that make up the Council of 39 Councillors. I look forward to some challenging weeks ahead!
Remote/Hybrid Meetings
With hybrid meetings firmly on the back burner again, no doubt you are all continuing to work hard to deliver excellent virtual meetings and although many of you have got managing and streaming meetings down to a fine art we are still very aware that some councils are finding things very difficult, as tight budgets and lack of resource make accessing the necessary IT support difficult. If you have anything particular that you are struggling with, we do encourage you to use the forum as it is a great way to learn from colleagues and share experiences.
School Admission Appeals – Extension of Temporary Regulations
We were pleased to see last week that the DfE has communicated that the process to extend the temporary regulations to allow school admission appeals to be held virtually, is now complete. This will extend the temporary regulations (The School Admissions (England) (Coronavirus) (Appeals Arrangements) (Amendment) Regulations 2020) until 30th September 2021.An update on the DfE website is expected imminently as well as the publication of extended temporary regulations.
Remote Meetings – Extension of May 2021 Deadline
The response from Government to date is not very positive with regard to extending the May deadline for remote meetings. Whilst accepting that the provision has been successful, the Minister said last week that he had no plans to extend the date as it requires primary legislation and there is no vehicle to do that in time for May. He added that whilst it is not possible at the moment, if there is an opportunity to make it more permanent, he will take it.
Clearly this is very unsatisfactory given the current situation across the country and the fact that the deadline is less than two months away. We would urge you to encourage your authorities to lobby Robert Jenrick MP in the strongest terms to act quickly to extend the deadline. ADSO is currently discussing with LLG the possibility of seeking Counsel’s opinion. The precise details are still being worked out and we will keep you informed.
ADSO Annual Conference, 2021
We are currently considering the arrangements for our annual conference, which is usually held in November of each year. With continuing uncertainty, our overriding priority will be to ensure that our arrangements are safe for everyone involved. We are keen to hear your views on what you would like to see in terms of the format and content of this conference. If you haven’t done so already, we would be grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete our survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/N9CKRDF
ADSO Webinar – Councillor Code of Conduct
We are pleased to report that following the publication of the Code of Conduct by the LGA last month, this free webinar, hosted by ADSO, will take place on Friday 29th January 2021, between 10.30 and 11.30am. Paul Hoey from Hoey Ainscough Associates and the co-architect of the new code will present its key elements and in particular the changes from the consultation version. You will have the opportunity to ask questions of Paul and share your views. To book a place, please click on the link below:
https://www.adso.co.uk/event/adso-webinar-councillor-code-of-conduct/?instance_id=209 ”
Introduction to Democratic and Committee Administration Programme
South East Employers are running this four-day training course on 10th & 11th February and 3rd & 4th March 2021. The Programme is aimed at recently appointed Democratic Services staff or developing professionals. If you would like more information, or to book a place, please contact Mark Palmer at SEE (mark@seemp.co.uk).
Career case studies
We would like to demonstrate the variety of career paths that someone new to the role of DSO may be able to progress to. Many of us have experienced being referred to as administrators despite the complexities of our roles and sometimes it is hard to see what a career path in the democracy world might look like.
We are therefore calling all of you who started in a more junior role, (typist, admin assistant, apprentice etc) but have progressed, or have taken on a variety of roles coming in from something very different, to assist us with creating some career case studies. Just on the Board there are some really interesting career paths, none of us walked into doing what we do/did, and I am sure it wasn’t a career conversation any of us had either!
If you would be interested in helping with this work and showing what a career path could look like based on your career to date, please get in touch with Joanna, we would love to hear from you – Joanna.boaler@adso.co.uk.
IIMC January 2021 Newsletter
The latest IIMC newsletter has been published and includes an article on the ADSO Awards Ceremony (pg 14-15). Use the following link to access the newsletter: https://cdn.flipsnack.com/widget/v2/widget.html?hash=t982ni3xu3
LLG Wellbeing Week
Lastly but by no means least, we hope that some of you were able to participate in the LLG Wellbeing Week events last week, mental health and wellbeing is an area many are struggling with at present, we hope that some of you were able to take time out to attend and hopefully take some useful learning away from these.
That’s all for this week, thank you for reading our first introduction to the newsletter. Have a great week -and stay safe!
Priya Patel and Michelle Beaumont, ADSO Company Secretary (Joint)